Posted on Radio

Breakdown: September 1st on KPFK’s Melting Pot

kpfk-logo

It’s been over a month since I’ve been on the air and I’ve missed it. After almost 20 years since I started in radio, I’ve never tired of the simple joy of playing music for other people and telling them about it. One month doesn’t seem like a long time, but it felt like ages since the last time I was at KPFK. being away for so long means there’s a ton of music, new and old, that I’ve been stockpiling to play for y’all. Newer tunes come your way via Valerie June, Fat Night, Haitus Kaiyote, Marta Ren & the Groovelvets, Frootful, King Khan & the Shrines, the Spandettes, Chicano Batman and (finally!) the Boogaloo Assassins, with classic material worked in from the Isleys, Michael Jackson, Donald Byrd and others. Very very happy to be back on the air and looking forward to all of these Sundays in September to bring you the best music I can find.

Melting Pot on KPFK #137: First Hour
Melting Pot on KPFK #137: Second Hour

Playlist: 09-01-2013
{opening theme} Booker T & the MGs – Melting Pot – Melting Pot (Stax)

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The Isley Brothers – Work To Do – Brother, Brother, Brother (T-Neck)
Bing Ji Ling – Move On – Shadow To Shine (Tummy Touch)
Belle & Sebastian – Your Secrets – Third Eye Centre (Matador)
Myron & E – If I Gave You My Love – Broadway (Stones Throw)
Marta Ren & the Groovelvets – 2 Kinds Of Men – 7” (Record Kicks)

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Fat Night – Things You Do – 7” (Colemine)
King Khan & the Shrines – Pray For Lil – Idle No More (Merge)
Lake – Giving & Receiving – Giving & Receiving (K Recs)
Michael Jackson – I Can’t Help It – Off The Wall (Epic)
Quadron – LFT – Avalanche (Vested In Culture)

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Elyas Khan – Bells – Single (BBE)
El Guincho – Bombay – Pop Negro (Young Turks/XL)
Lime – Your Love – Your Love (Prism)
The Spandettes – Sweet & Saccarhine (Whiskey Baron Remix) – 7” (Do Right!)

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Haitus Kaiyote – Nakamarra – Tawk Tomahawk (Flying Buddha)
Jose James – Love – The Dreamer (Brownswood)
Frootful feat. Mazen – The Road – 7” (Freestyle)
Jovenes y Sexys – Amor Platonico – Original Music and Songs Inspired By Rudo Y Cursi (Nacional)

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The Decoders feat. Noelle Skaggs – Walk On By – Single (Self-released)
Valerie June – The Hour – Pushing Against The Stone (Concord)
Dimas III & the Royal Jesters – I Won’t Love You Again – 7” (Clown)
Chicano Batman – Cycles Of Existential Rhyme – Magma EP (Self-Released)
Terence Blanchard – Central Focus – Magnetic (Blue Note)

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The Boogaloo Assassins – Para Mi – Old Love Dies Hard (Sicario Records)
The Hawk feat. Little Hannah Collins – Don’t Judge A Book – Record Kicks 10th (Record Kicks)
Donald Byrd – Dominoes – Places & Spaces (Blue Note)
{closing theme} Dungen – C. Visar Vagen – Tio Batar (Kemado)

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Trinikas – Remember Me – 7” (Numero)

Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep: Horace Silver – Total Response – Blue Note (1971)

HoraceResponse

Horace Silver – Acid, Pot or Pills
Horace Silver – Old Mother Nature Calls
Horace Silver – Total Response

I’m not sure where or when I heard of this album. Generally my memory is pretty exact with music, but not in this case. I feel like it was in Atlanta that at some point I’m pretty sure I heard “Acid, Pot or Pills,” maybe in a club or on a mix, but I’m strangely not sure. What is much more perplexing is that it took me all this time to actually track down a copy of the album. “Acid, Pot or Pills” should have been more than enough to get me searching for this one, but it wasn’t until a more recent listen that I started on the hunt. Total Response finds Silver playing in a funkier vein, though depending on how you define the term, there was certainly always a heavy amount of “funk” in his piano playing. But this album, along with the others in the United States Of Mind trilogy were still a bit of a departure, less so in the music, definitely in the lyrics.

I think that was what struck me most about this album, the music is pretty fantastic, as are the vocals of Andy and Salome Bey (aren’t they always?), but it’s the lyrical content that is really striking. “Old Mother Nature Calls” and “Big Business” are songs that would be completely in step with the current era, even though they’re over 40 years old. That seems less like a “more things change, the more they stay the same” kind of thing and instead really shows how far out ahead Silver was with this music.

Cheers,

Michael

Posted on Ephemera

In Heavy Rotation: Hiatus Kaiyote – Tawk Tomahawk – Flying Buddha

HaitusKai

Hiatus Kaiyote – Nakamarra

So…as you might have noticed I’ve been away for most of the month of August, both here and on the air at KPFK. KPFK was planned, this was not and it has to do with the blur that has been this month of August with tons of personal things going on and the fact that my laptop basically gave up on me part way through the month. Now that summer is almost over, another school year has just begun and I’m about to return to the KPFK airwaves, it should be back to business as usual here on the blog (strangely though August has been the most visited month in the blog’s history…perhaps I should go away more often?).

I return here with a track that I first heard when Morgan Rhodes filled in for me a few weeks ago. Driving around LA (a bit surreal listening to your own show when you’re not on it) I became increasingly enamored with the song she was playing. At first I thought it might have been some obscure track from the Soulqarians with Badu on vocals, but the singer did things that Badu doesn’t and perhaps can’t. The phrasing was a bit more left of center than I’d expect from her and so I knew that I had a real mystery on my hands. At the break Morgan solved it for me saying the band was Hiatus Kaiyote, they were from Australia and they’d just played a show in LA at the Bootleg Theater. While I was kicking myself for missing the show (and for being pretty late on this train, since AntVala and other KCRW’ers had been up on it since last year!) I was happy to learn that the record from the group had been released by Salaam Remi’s label Flying Buddah earlier in the summer. Since that first moment I’ve been crushing pretty hard on this song, a late challenger for the song of the summer for me. If you haven’t heard it yet, welcome to your latest musical crush as well and look for big things from this group in the near future.

Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep: Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Prepare Thyself To Deal With A Miracle – Atlantic (1973)

Rahsaan1973

Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Seasons
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Saxophone Concerto

Time got away from me so this is a belated birthday post for our patron saint here at Melting Pot. Prepare Thyself To Deal With A Miracle comes from what is clearly a favorite period of Rahsaan’s work (since the other two prior records I’ve posted here, Bright Moments and Blacknuss, are from this same time frame). The record stands in fairly stark contrast to other albums from this period of time in that there is very little soul or funk influence in the playing. “Miracle” finds Rahsaan engrossed in a very personal style that borders on what we generally describe these days as Spiritual Jazz. The album also contains two of my favorite Rahsaan compositions, though for very different reasons.

“Seasons” begins with Rahsaan playing both flute and nose flute simultaneously before moving into what I feel is one of the most lovely and meditative pieces of music I’ve ever heard. Truly gorgeous in every possible meaning of the word. A few years ago a live performance of “Seasons” was included on the highly recommended Live at Montreux video. If you never seen it before, or have never seen Rahsaan perform, you need to watch this:

“Saxophone Concerto” stands as one of the greatest compositions and bravura performances from Rahsaan. The track takes up the entire second side of the album, split into three parts, “Saxophone Miracle,” “”One Breath Beyond,” and “Dance Of Revolution,” and was recorded without a single over-dub. Additionally, Rahsaan employs his circular breathing techniques on this song, which makes it essentially a 20 minute saxophone solo. It’s perhaps Rahsaan’s most well-realized example of “Black Classical Music” and fairly stunning the first time you hear it. Proof positive that despite all of the theatrics (which personally were always necessary in connection with producing a singular sound) Rahsaan’s talents as a soloist were unparalled in the music world.

Cheers,

Michael

Posted on Ephemera

In Heavy Rotation: Soundsci – Soundsational – Ubiquity

Soundsci

Soundsci – Understand The Message

Since it’s based off of samples from the recent “Don’t Sell Your Soul” anthology of the music of Mike James Kirkland, there’s virtually no way for me to dislike this project. Soundsci features an international cast of characters (including Audessey, who used to be in famed ATL underground crew Mass Influence) and for Soundsational they’ve based every song off of originals from Mike & the Censations. As a full-length record, truthfully, it’s a bit hit and miss. But when it hits, it hits HARD. “Understand The Message” samples the horns from “Don’t Sell Your Soul” to great effect and gives you a sense of what I mean.

Posted on Ephemera

Giveaway: The Heavy @ the Fonda Theatre on August 8th!!!

Heavy

Just because I’m not on the air doesn’t mean that I can’t hook y’all up with some tickets. The Heavy have been a personal fave for quite sometime. The band has stuck true to their roots even while delivering a couple of “hits” and breaking out, especially via TV and Film placement of their music. They always deliver when performing live and if you dig their sound, you can see it live and direct at the Fonda Theatre this Thursday August 8th! All you have to do is e-mail me at michael[at]meltingpotblog.com by Wednesday 5pm!

If you need a taste of what’s in store, here they are performing their “hit” “How You Like Me Now?” over at LA’s the El Rey:

And “Short Change Hero” live in Cologne, Germany:

And “What Makes A Good Man” live on Craig Ferguson’s Late Night Show:

Posted on Radio

Be Our Guest: Ruben Molina on KPFK’s Melting Pot!!

Ruben Molina @ KPFK

{In addition to an almost month-long hiatus from the radio show, I’m going to take most of the next week off from the blog. I’ll be back here next week, until then enjoy the music, especially THIS one!!!}

Ruben Molina of the Southern Soul Spinners was our guest this past Sunday.  Molina has been a collector since the days of his youth in 1960s Los Angeles, and much like KPFK’s Bill Gardner is truly a living encyclopedia when it comes to soul music.  Ruben Molina KPFKIn addition to having written two books, The Old Barrio Guide To Lowrider Music 1950-1975 and Chicano Soul: Recordings and History of an American Culture, Molina is recognized as a true historian when it comes to these sweet soul sounds.  This style of music, whether we call it “Lowrider Music,” “East Side Soul,” “Souldies,” “Firme Rolas,” “Sweet Soul/Funk” or “Deep Soul,” always seems to hit the spot.  The idea for asking Molina to come in was related to conversations with Soul-Sides Oliver Wang and with my Wife over the last several months.  Molina was more than happy to come in to talk about the music and spin some tunes. I’m not sure there have been so many records that I knew nothing about but once I heard them I instantly, obsessively wanted to have in my collection, than you’ll hear in this set.  I have a feeling you’ll be feeling that way too as soon as you start listening to it.  There are some slight tech issues, twice the power cut out on us, which causes the sound to drop out and then start back up at 33 rpms, but that’s just to prove to you that the set was all on original vinyl! Don’t worry, I’m sure Ruben will be back in the near future to play even more music, but for now…Enjoy!

Guest DJ Set from Ruben Molina for KPFK’s Melting Pot: 07-28-2013

Passionettes – My Life Depends On You – Soul Burst
Desciples of Soul – Peek-A-Boo – GV
Masqueraders – One More Chance – La Beat
Enchanting Enchanters – No One In This World – Ben-Mo-Keith
Dimas III – I Won’t Love You Again – Clown
Mandells – Think Back – Trans World Sound
Doc & Sal – Cry and Wonder Why – Dynamic
Dream Team – There He Is – Gregory
Wasters – Accept My Love – UNI
Reggie Soul & the Swingmasters – World Of Ecstasy – Capri
Voice Masters – Two Lovers – Frisco
Kickin’ Mustangs – Take A Miracles – Plato
Little Janice – Since You’ve Been Gone – Pzazz
Three Stranges – I’ll Be Alright – ABC-Paramount
Magic Tones – Nothing Better Than Love – Mah’s
Cheryl Williams – I’m Your Fool – Bengee
Coronadas – You Can Do Me Some Good – Bright Star
Deceptions – Of All The Hearts – Brooks
Royal Chessmen – Beggin’ You – Custom Fidelity
Wendy Rene – After The Laughter – Stax

Posted on Radio

Breakdown: July 28th on KPFK’s Melting Pot

kpfk-logo

{I’m going to be taking a bit of a hiatus from the radio show for most of August as I attend to other matters, I’ll be leaving you in the capable hands of Steve Martin on August 4th and Morgan Rhodes on August 11th. August 18th there will be a fundraising special and I’ll be back with more vinyl on August 25th!!!}

Technology gremlins were in full force this Sunday, which is truly a shame because this was a dynamite show with dynamite soul. Oliver Wang and Ruben Molina were in the studio with me as we all played some “Eastside Soul” music. Oliver and I traded off on sets of 5 tunes each to start the show (though one of mine was chosen by my wife who like all true Angelenos is a true fan of this kind of music), and then we spent far too little time chatting with Ruben Molina. Molina is in many ways THE historian of this music, having published two books and being a founding member of the Southern Soul Spinners collective of DJs. I’ll highlight his mix (along with the list of tunes he played!) in a separate post but trust me, even with the turntables acting up, inputs on the board not doing what they’re supposed to do and not one but two power strip outages, this show is one for the ages and definitely one of my favorites ones since starting the show on KPFK. Enjoy this to the fullest!

Melting Pot on KPFK #136: First Hour
Melting Pot on KPFK #136: Second Hour

Playlist: 7-28-2013
{opening theme} Boris Gardiner – Melting Pot – Is What’s Happening (Dynamic)

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Billy Stewart – I DO Love You – Billy Stewart Remembered (Chess)
Darondo – Didn’t I – 7” (Music City)
Black Ivory – Don’t Turn Around – Don’t Turn Around (Today)
Linda Jones – Hypnotized – 7” (Hot Groove)
The Webs – It’s So Hard To Break A Habit – 7” (Popside)

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The Diabolics – I Bet You Never Knew That I Followed You – 7” (Togetherness)
Soul Sensations – When I Had You Baby – 7” (Music City)
Ice Water Slim – Dream On, Dream On – 7” (Hawk Sound)
The Larks – I Want You Back – 7” (Nasco)
Sly, Slick & Wicked – Love Gonna Pack Up – 7” (Bad Boys)

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Ruben Molina – Interview and Guest DJ Set – Recorded Live At KPFK (KPFK Archives)

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{closing theme} Mike & the Censations – Victim Of Circumstance Part 2 – Don’t Sell Your Soul (Luv’n’Haight)

Posted on Ephemera

Giveaway: KING @ the Bootleg Theater August 2nd!!!

foto © Chelsea Lauren

You got a taste when KING performed on Melting Pot, here’s your chance to see them at the Bootleg Theater this Friday, August 2nd! The band performed a very successful residency here in June, and they’ve returned once again, hopefully with even more new songs! Great chance to see one of the brightest rising stars in music courtesy of Melting Pot, make sure to send an e-mail to michael[at]meltingpotblog.com by Thursday at 5pm if you want a chance to win!!!

In the meantime, as we wait for their performance and their upcoming full-length, here is their latest song, “In The Meantime”:

And the song/video that kicked off one of our longest running musical crushes (for lots of people, for a band without a full-length release, KING’s fans are VERY devoted to the band, with music this good it’s easy to see why):

Posted on About Melting Pot, Dig Deep

Melting Pot’s Deepest Digs Volume 4!!!

DeepestDigs4

4 Years in I hope you know the score, even if this is a few weeks late (better late than never, right?). Twenty of my favorite tracks from the past year on Melting Pot…Dig On It!

Melting Pot’s Deepest Digs Volume 4

1. Lee Hazlewood – For One Moment – The Very Special World Of Lee Hazlewood (MGM)
2. Perez Prado – Black Magnolia – El Fabuloso (Dimsa)
3. Wilson Simonal – Meia Volta – Wilson Simonal (Odeon)
4. Lebron Brothers – Dance, Dance, Dance – Brother (Cotique)
5. Latin Blues Band – I’ll Be A Happy Man – Take A Trip Pussycat (Speed)
6. La Clave – Latin Slide – La Clave (Verve)
7. Lyn Collins – We Want To Parrty, Parrty, Parrty – 7” (People)
8. Research 1-6-12 – Can You Baby – In Research (Flick City)
9. Danny Schloss – In A Dream – Dreams And Illusons (Verve Forecast)
10. Demon Fuzz – Another Country – Afreaka! (Janus)
11. Mount Rushmore – Toe Jam – ’69 (Dot)
12. Edip Akbayaram & Dolstar – Daglar Dagladi Beni – 7” (Sayan)
13. Dionne Warwick – You’re Gonna Need Me – Just Being Myself (WB)
14. The Heads – Digging Your Head – Heads Up (Liberty)
15. Erkin Korsay – Yagmur – 7” (Istanbul)
16. Gas Mask – If You Just Think Of Me – Their First Album (Tonsil)
17. Mind Garage – Recessional – Again! (RCA)
18. Becky and Sandy – I Wish We’d All Been Ready – I Know Where I’m Going (Mission)
19. Siren – Wake Up My Children – Siren (Elektra)
20. JJ Barnes – You Owe It To Yourself Parts 1 & 2 – Born Again (Perception)

Posted on Dig Deep

Dig Deep: The Emotions – Untouched – Volt (1972)

Emotions

The Emotions – Blind Alley
The Emotions – Boss Love Maker
The Emotions – Take Me Back

A little while ago I was obsessively trying to get a solid copy of The Emotions “Blind Alley” on 45. Ever since I first found out this was the sample behind Big Daddy Kane’s “Ain’t No Half Steppin'” I’ve been in love with this track. I always promise myself to pick it up and never do. Well, as I was mentioning, earlier in the year I was tired of not having this in my collection. But I ran into unusually bad luck securing a copy. I’d run into it when I didn’t have any money, and it would be gone from stores when I did have the dough. I’d scope the “perfect” copy on Ebay and sniped or taken away just before the auction closed or I’d forget my phone. It was comical how many times I missed this 45.

At some point I realized that the song was also on a LP, and since I’m much more of an LP guy it made more since to go there. The copy I did secure actually cost less than most of the 45s, but it did come with a price, “Blind Alley” had probably the most surface noise of any track on the LP. So, I’ll likely “Mint-Up” on this one at some point, but it’s still nice to have. I wasn’t aware that Dale Warren (who produced one of my favorite projects of all-time 24-Carat Black) was involved on this particular production, but you hear his influence (as well as Isaac Hayes) on “Take It Back” and a few other tracks. Overall great sound from Muscle Shoals and eveyone else involved, Untouched is definitely worth a look.

Cheers,

Michael

Posted on Ephemera

In Heavy Rotation: The Mantles – Long Enough To Leave – Slumberland

Mantles

The Mantles – Bad Design

There are a handful of labels that I always trust because the music that they produce is always top-notch. When it comes to indie-rock and pop, Oakland’s Slumberland records might just be my current favorite. One of their most recent releases is from The Mantles, a garage pop group out of the Bay Area. There sound is an interesting one, because it’s not simply a revivalist take, but has a few elements of the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. “Bad Design” is a good representative, of this sound, imminently poppy, with a little jangly guitar, subtle washes of organ and percussion mixed with a gritty style admist the sunshiney melodies. All in all, sure to get more than a few spins here in the Summer.